what do you all think about this?

(U-WIRE) BERKELEY, Calif. - A recent study that found affirmative action hurts black students' performance in law school has stirred up controversy among faculty and students at law schools across the nation.

The report, published in the Stanford Law Review in December, revealed that many black students are unable to perform well at top-ranking law schools because they were admitted because of racial preference.

"Student expectations can backfire when they are too high," said Richard Sander, a University of California at Los Angeles professor who wrote the study. "Students who were in by affirmative action were not prepared for exams - law professors move at a faster pace at the elite schools."

Sander's report reveals that the average black student's LSAT score was 130 to 170 points below the average score of a white student's. According to his report, 52 percent of black law students have grades in the lowest 10th percentile after finishing their first year, while 8 percent rank in the top half.

But critics of the study slam Sander and his findings for leaving out other factors that could explain why black law students are performing below par.

University of California-Berkeley law professor Goodwin Liu, who published a rebuttal to Sander's report in the California Bar Journal this month, said there is no direct correlation in the gap between law school entrance eligibility and law school grades.

"Entering credentials is not attributable to affirmative action," Liu said. "Blacks would still be at the bottom and not the top even if there is no affirmative action. The study is missing an important statistical step that has nothing to do with affirmative action."

Sander said his findings show black students would get better GPAs if they applied to less prestigious schools. Employers are now hiring more black lawyers, regardless of where they went to school, he said

He isolates the entering credentials, and shows that minority students that are matched with their peers (ie those that have similar entering credentials) perform as well as expected. Entering credentials are just as effective at predicting success of minority students as white/asian students. This of course means that those with low entering credentials tend to not perform as well.

I am interested in Liu's rebuttal, should be interesting. The Sanders study is pretty thorough.

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maricutie

The study itself is actually pretty solid ... my only wish would be that they do it for other groups as well. Oh, and that they spell out what they mean by "similar" to non-minority students ... I just find it hard to believe that an LSAT a couple points under the median and a slightly weaker gpa is going to confine you to the bottom 10% or so of the class. Especially since a couple of LSAT points at the top schools really just means getting 2-3 more questions right.

Sander said his findings show black students would get better GPAs if they applied to less prestigious schools. Employers are now hiring more black lawyers, regardless of where they went to school, he said

Well you know...the study was done in CA so it is the law

I guess that since we're black we should only apply to third and fourth tier schools. We aren't deserving of the prestige of Harvard... Give me a break...

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mercutio_13

Sander said his findings show black students would get better GPAs if they applied to less prestigious schools. Employers are now hiring more black lawyers, regardless of where they went to school, he said

Well you know...the study was done in CA so it is the law

I guess that since we're black we should only apply to third and fourth tier schools. We aren't deserving of the prestige of Harvard... Give me a break...

You really should read the article before you decide to play the race card.

He's stating that AA practices allow for a few non-HYS calibur students into those schools, and as a result they are overmatched and perform poorly.

The man is not making a "black folk are too dumb to go to elite schools" argument. He's attempting to show the downside of AA programs and the detrimental effects on the very people it purports to help. The article is very thorough, though it has some holes.

Read it in its entirety and see if you still feel the same way about it.

I wouldn't respond to an article that I didn't read in its entirety.Stanford doesn't have AA practices, so what do you think his motivation was for this study, if it wasn't race? He didn't do a study on Hispanics, or lower income whites..

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mercutio_13

I wouldn't respond to an article that I didn't read in its entirety.Stanford doesn't have AA practices, so what do you think his motivation was for this study, if it wasn't race? He didn't do a study on Hispanics, or lower income whites..

If I were to honestly guess what his motivation was for this study, I would say:

He thought he could get some good grant money out of the idea, publish a high profile paper, and use it as leverage for a salary increase.

At least that's the only true motivating factors I've seen in academia

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maricutie

I wouldn't respond to an article that I didn't read in its entirety.Stanford doesn't have AA practices, so what do you think his motivation was for this study, if it wasn't race? He didn't do a study on Hispanics, or lower income whites..

Well, in all fairness, he's a prof at UCLA, not stanford. He just got his study published on the stanford review.

His motivation, though, I feel is a genuine curiosity about the effects of AA. Did you guys read his intro? He has a history of campaigning and researching for minority rights, he married a black woman, has a bi-racial daughter, is really well respected, etc ... Call me naive, but I think he's just really trying to figure out if it's helping those it's supposed to. Sure, he didn't do other races, but most of the AA discussion tends to be about black applicants anyhow, even though historically white women have benefitted the most.

I didn't say the man was racist. I really just wonder why so many Caucasions are so concerned about African Americans' performance in law school. If you need clarification, I was quite sarcastic in my first response... It was directed moreso at those that really believe that people of other races are inferior to them in their methods of thinking and performance.

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maricutie

I didn't say the man was racist. I really just wonder why so many Caucasions are so concerned about African Americans' performance in law school. If you need clarification, I was quite sarcastic in my first response... It was directed moreso at those that really believe that people of other races are inferior to them in their methods of thinking and performance.

Didn't take it this way at all, actually. I just figured it was a genuine question of, well, why he was questioning the effects of AA. My feeling is that one day he probably got tired of all the conservatives knocking it down and decided to study what was really happening.